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Introduction

Purpose

The purpose of this guide is to provide scientists with information about a wide variety of packages available for visualizing their data as well as preparing it for presentation and publication. It is not intended to serve as an instructional booklet, but rather as a means of making researchers aware of what resources are available and reducing the spin-up time required to take advantage of them. The description of each utility/package contains some basic "how-to" pointers explaining what each package is good (and bad) at and how to get started using each, with practical hints and links to further information.

Targeted Users

This document is aimed primarily at the two ends of the user spectrum: novice users (or not-so-novice users in a hurry) who just need a quick and easy way to look at their data, and "cutting-edge" users exploring new and more sophisticated methods for visualization/presentation.

Quick Start

A Quick Start Guide is also available for those who want an overview or simply need to refresh their memory.

Availability

This guide is really tailored to GFDL's computing environment. It may also be of some interest to others looking for basic visualization information., but users from outside GFDL may not be able to reach all of the links which are referenced.

Development: READ ME !

A lot of things about this guide are still up-in-the-air:

should the list of packages be selective, or comprehensive?
must the listed packges be supported locally (ie, by individuals at GFDL) ?
should packages which appear very useful, but have not been extensively test-driven locally, be included?
should packages which do not support netCDF be included?
should packages "under development" be advertised?
what should be done when packages are either deleted (for whatever reason) or are "promoted" to /usr/local/ from whatever directory they were being tested in?
should this guide exist as an on-line reference (probably), a printed document (maybe), or both (arrghhh!) ?

In addition, this document is also being used as a design tool - I am inserting packages and utilities which I forsee obtaining/developing at some time in the future. Also, a lot of the implied "links" have not been addressed here yet. Users need to be patient (or ask me) when the item they're looking for doesn't really exist yet.

For the time being, I will treat this guide as a continually modifiable document. I invite interested users to refer to it and participate in exploring and evaluating visualization options. I will, however, take special care to maintain stable versions/locations in two instances:

when data integrity is an issue (eg, the netCDF library and interface routines)
when the user base becomes "significant"

Hopefully, this will be a workable compromise. Any and all comments from all who enter here are welcome. But please realize this is very much a work in progress!

Prepared by John P. Sheldon
(jps@gfdl.gov)

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